Shoulders slouching, she frowns while staring down at the picture in silence.
“Get out of here, Miss Anders. And if I find you snooping around the manor again, I’ll have you arrested on the spot for trespassing.”
She doesn’t bother to look at me as she pushes up from the chair. It’s when she passes that she grabs my arm, and I startle at her touch, thinking she’s going strike out at me. Instead she gives a squeeze, and her brows wing up to something that appears to be more sympathetic than angry. “Watch yourself, Isa. Don’t trust anyone.”
“Out. Now.” Once she’s left, he turns to me. “I apologize for making you sit through that, Miss Quinn, but I thought you should be aware, in the event you’ve shared any private conversations with her.”
My mind rewinds to conversations I’ve had with her, where I could’ve easily said something personal. Something that would’ve had me, or Aunt Midge, under scrutiny. Namely, the issue with the drug dealer.
He huffs, the frown on his face deepening. “I wasn’t aware of this until recently. Tell me, have you noticed any unusual behaviors in your time working alongside her?”
“Just … she asked me to cover once, so she could sort something out. I assumed it was with her son.”
“I see. And what was the nature of you covering for her?”
A quick glance toward Laura shows her staring back at me. “Just keeping an eye on Mrs. Blackthorne for a few hours.”
“We try to keep a nurse on hand at all times. On the weekends, when Nell leaves, Shauna takes over. Therefore, it’s important that you communicate these things to me.”
“My apologies. It won’t happen again.” I lower my gaze from his, fingers fidgeting. “I’m assuming Lucian told you what I told him.”
“He did. And while I find her actions to be quite serious, we came to the conclusion that she would be let go immediately.”
“It just doesn’t seem like …”
“What?”
“She said she’s been working so hard to get her son back.” I don’t bother to tell him that she struggled through rehab to get clean prior to becoming a nurse. “It seems strange that she’d let anything get in the way of that.”
“Some people have a very self-destructive approach to their wellbeing.”
“Well, I, for one, never trusted her.” Laura sits with her hands folded in her lap and shakes her head. “The things she would say and do. Wretched girl.”
“What kinds of things would she say?” Rand asks, turning his chair to face her.
“She said that Isa had stolen from me.” Laura scoffs and glances away, frowning, and I lower my gaze to keep from having to look at her.
I could tell her it’s true right now, and clear Nell’s name of at least one accusation, but when I lift my gaze to Rand, he’s shaking his head, the expression on his face a warning.
So I don’t bother. Nell is gone now. I suppose clearing her name is pointless.
Chapter 50
Lucian
The Institute is the one place on the east coast I wish I could set fire to and watch burn. Doing so would certainly spare the country of half its psychopaths. A chill settles across my nape as I walk the halls that, just a few years back, bore witness to my suffering and torment. Now, the place merely serves as somewhere for the Collective to meet, but I don’t think I’ll ever fully erase the harrowing images of my time spent here.
The idea was to prod me into an aggressive state, so they wouldn’t have to explain away a false-negative result in my DNA. By rejecting my sadistic tendencies, I essentially discredit the entire organization, since my lineage represents the most well-studied of any member. There are so many samples of my DNA, sperm, and stem cells stocked here, they could probably begin generating my clones. Unless they already have, and that’s the nature of this otherwise useless meeting.
I reach the door to Friedrich’s office. After a couple knocks, it swings open, and the man himself stands there, wearing a smile that could house a small village.
“Lucian, wonderful to see you! Thank you for making the trip up.” He ushers me inside the office, patting my shoulder as I pass. Prick wouldn’t dare lay a hand on me the way he did when I was sixteen, with as much as I’ve filled out over the years. Not to mention the funding he’d risk losing, if he did.
My unpredictable nature likely puts him on edge, too.
Good.
Nowadays, it’s only a careful placement of his hand on my shoulder. Cautious responses.
Gesturing toward one of the chairs in front of his desk, he makes his way to the other side and falls into his own.
“I’m assuming you have something important to discuss, as you’ve requested face-to-face, rather than a Skype meeting.” I lean back in the chair, wishing I had a drink to numb me from the science bullshit he’ll undoubtedly spew in the next ten minutes.
“You know I don’t trust meetings held over the computer.”
Of course I do. And I was swept over with a metal detector at the front entrance, to ensure that I didn’t have a recording device on me, including my phone. Since it’s not my first rodeo, I left that in the car with the driver I hired.
“The purpose of this is to let you know that I did look into Mr. Boyd’s family history,” he started. “And it does seem he has an incarcerated twin. But the interesting piece in all of this is who he murdered.”
“And who might that be?”
“Their biological father. Who also had a criminal record for assault and the murder of their mother, when both boys were quite young.”
“That sounds like one messed up family tree.”
“Indeed. Which makes Patrick a very curious specimen. I’d love to pick his brain about what he remembers of his childhood.”
I’m sure he would. Literally, with an ice pick. “I take it my vote no longer holds any weight.”
Hands in the air, he smiles and shakes his head. “Now, I didn’t say that. We don’t have baseline studies on him, so much of the data will be inconclusive, anyway. It’s more curiosity on my part. Was Amelia his only offspring?”
I shrug, already beyond my limits of boredom. “As far as I know.”
“We’ll verify that, of course. For now, I’m going to observe before making a decision about him.”
“And this is what you requested an in-person meeting for?”
“Of course not.” He rises up from his chair and shoves his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. “Come with me. I’d like to show you what your generous funding has provided.”
With a quiet huff, I follow him out of the office and down the hallway, toward the elevators I took to get up here. Once inside, he pushes the button to the bottom floor of the institute. A place where all the magic of this shit-show goes down.
The research department.
The doors slide open to a too-bright hallway, where fluorescent lights leave me squinting.
He leads me down the white hallways, with white doors and white tiled floors, that smell of potent disinfectant. “Have you considered more extensive surgery on your scars?” he asks over his shoulder.